


Make a Move

by Nightcrackle



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Blood and Gore, But not by Toothless, Cannibalism, Cannibalistic Thoughts, Courting Rituals, Courtship, Dragon Toothless (How to Train Your Dragon), Eventual Happy Ending, Existential Crisis, F/M, He is Not Well in this fic but he draws the line at that, Identity Issues, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Jealousy, M/M, Obsession, Obsessive Behavior, Possessive Behavior, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, Unreliable Narrator, and
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:14:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22943107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightcrackle/pseuds/Nightcrackle
Summary: It just so happens that there is a new dragon on the island of Berk, and they aren't afraid of going after the things they want. The thing they're currently after? One Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, much to a certain Night Fury's dismay.With their presence on Berk, Toothless finds he has certain decisions to make.
Relationships: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Toothless
Comments: 11
Kudos: 64





	Make a Move

The dark blue of the night sky has long since risen, and below it lies few creatures that are awake.

Below this risen dark blue, Toothless stalks. He stalks no particular being, and in no particular direction, simply following scent after scent in a semi-blind daze. The rocks, grass, and trees appearing more as color splotches splattered on an empty canvas. Like a living shadow, he swiftly traverses the land that makes up his Nest, quiet wisps of white-grey smoke leaving his open maw as he pants. The colorful smells of so many coating his tongue, maddening.

Scent after scent after scent after scent: Squirrel. Rabbit. Nightmare. Zippleback. Ants.

Nadder. Gronkcle. Crickets. The grass scraping against his underbelly. Typhoomerang. Birds. Sickness. A rock making its way out from between his claws. Singetail. Rumblehorn.

Thunderdrum. His wings pulled too close to his body, tense. Whispering Death. Speed Stingers. Hotburple. Fireworms. Death. Rot. The taste of deer meat at the back of his tongue. Changewings. Fireflies. Scauldron. Terrible Terror—

Dampness beneath his paws, the scent of water just beneath him.

Lake.

Toothless’ right ear plate twitches.

 _Lake_.

His head spins and his tongue is rough, as dry as the bones Boneknappers guard so vigorously.

Aching black paws reach the edge of ground cover and shivering wings automatically unfurl and spread to catch the wind to carry him down the cliffside. He lands at the bottom of it, the tall grass underneath him making no sound at all, and moving forward, it parts as fluidly as the clouds he and his beloved soar through, the scent of the water he so desperately craves making him salivate while the scent of Terror gets stronger; right in front of his nose, now that he thinks about it.

Through the long blades of greenery, he can see the Terror, lapping up its fill. Its eyes orange as the setting sun, and underbelly a light cinnamon. The membrane of its wings a crimson red that fades towards the bottom, and the faded bottom sporting dapples with the same deep crimson that stay near the tops of the wings. Plentiful _tangerine stripes_ lay upon its _peach hide—_

He emerges from the overgrowth with a loud, rumbling snarl that comes from deep within his molten heartfire, his entire head twitching with the force of it, and his mouth agape and alight with a lavender flame. The poor Terror itself jumps about four feet in the air, its colors morphing right before his eyes before quickly taking off into the long grasses. Toothless himself can feel the vibrations of tiny creatures now fleeing from his presence through his claws that are dug deep into the earth.

Before long, the world is quiet.

Toothless swallows his fire and takes the spot the Terror was to drink his fill without any hesitation.

After quenching his thirst, he pulls back. His reflection stares at him, right back into his too wide open toxic green eyes, the left side of his lip unconsciously pulled up in a slight snarl, his claws fully out and dug into damp earth right where the water meets it. If he were in a better state of mind, he would probably make note that there was something wrong with it. With him, with his looks, with his behavior.

_His thoughts._

Toothless’ right ear plate twitches.

He breathes in. Thinks back on these past two moons, and _snarls_ into the open air.

They accuse him of jealousy. He disagrees. This is more than jealousy.

They say he has nothing to worry about. He disagrees. He has _everything_ to worry about.

He's seen the way she looks at him: impressed and yet needlessly probing. He's smelt the disgustingly spicy pheromones she spreads through the air, unprompted and _unwanted_.

Seen all the little things she's done to win Hiccup's affections.

He's seen the way Hiccup looks at her: bright and awestruck. He's smelt the disgustingly sweet pheromones he spreads through the air in response, strong and misplaced.

Seen all the little ways he responds to her advances.

Dragon and Viking alike have come to him to speak words so bold as ‘ _quit your worrying’_ for they cannot see what he sees. They can't. They cannot see that this...this...this _pathetic_ excuse for a _suitor_ that has slithered into their lives, that has the false strength to call herself _Undying_ , is on the prowl as he _breathes_.

And...perhaps it is Toothless’ fault—no, it _**is**_ his fault that Hiccup is in danger of floating away from him. He's the one who chose again and again to do nothing; to continue to perish the thought of something between him and his lovely, lovely little human being possible.

But to ask him to sit by and watch his mistake finally cost him is akin to asking him to lay down and die.

And well, that just won't do.

“Well, you certainly seem troubled.”

His head whirls so fast that there is a split second he believes it'll separate from his neck and fall to meet the damp grass he sits upon.

By the scent he can tell that the same Terror he frightened sits only but three Smokebreaths away from him, eyes squinted, it’s body completely tensed; somewhat cautious. It's coloring is no longer what he thought it was, its hide and wings a color palette of yellow, black, and green instead, with eyes the color of snow.

“Hey, no need to give me that look. I ain’t gonna eat you or anythin’,” the Terror says, bobbing its little yellow head. “Now what do ya think you’re doin’? Snarling at things that aren’t there?”

His body aches and quivers. The sky is still a blanket of dark blue, but just exactly how long has he been at this? Scouring the grounds of his Nest looking for nothing?

All of Toothless’ ear plates and nubs collectively twitch in what he can recognize as annoyance, and that is exactly what this Terrible Terror is: an annoyance.

Toothless makes no move to get closer to Annoyance, but he does lower his head to their level, a strain in his neck making an unwelcome appearance all the while. “I don’t think that’s any of your concern,” he growls.

Annoyance flicks a tongue over one of their eyes, their head bobbing slightly and tail swishing lazily. “Oh, when the Queen of a Nest is upset, I think it’s everyone’s concern,” they say smugly, wings fluttering a bit.

Fire crawls up Toothless’ throat from his heartfire and seeps out his nostrils as tendrils of white smoke; some of it wafting right over the Terror’s yellow head on its trip to the open night air. Toothless doesn’t need backtalk. This little nuisance isn’t even one of his, they have no right to what they’re saying.

“Annoying...” Toothless hisses to himself.

“And so are you! Givin’ me a fright like that. Completely undeserved, too!” The Terror returns, and before Toothless can blink, Annoyance jumps up onto his head and starts walking along his back, for some reason. Toothless immediately moves to snatch the smaller dragon off his back with his teeth without any true thought about it, and is grateful when his head is unable to reach far enough; the damage he would have done to the Terror would have been immense. “Say, what’s gotten into ya lately?” The little yellow dragon spouts rhetorically before continuing, “I don't hang around those awful sacks of meat like the rest of y’all seem to do, and yet somehow I keep hearin' about your terrible scent against my will.”

Toothless’ right ear plate twitches.

Scent? There’s nothing wrong with his scent. In one swift movement, Toothless has the mouthy little dragon off his back and pinned beneath his tail. The Terror lets out an indignant hiss at the impact.

“What are you talking about?” Toothless snarls.

“Are ya kiddin' me?” the Terror exclaims, biting and scratching at the black tail pinning him to the forest floor, “You! What other Nightshade would I be talkin' about that's the Queen of this Nest walkin' around with a scent of _hate-despair-fear_?”

Toothless can’t help but grumble, he heavily disagrees—there’s nothing wrong with him, or his scent—but he’s so thoroughly exhausted in a way he can’t explain, but can _feel_ so immensely now, that he drops it right there. His limbs quiver for the umpteenth time this night and he allows them to give out on him, his body dropping unceremoniously onto the damp lake grass.

Toothless ignores the incessant wriggling under his tail that has gone limp and the indignant curses Annoyance tosses into the cold night air, lying on the cold ground for a while. But he does not sleep, he doesn’t think he can, despite being so utterly drained while his entire body throbs in discomfort.

So Toothless lays there until the sky turns a calming mix of blue and orange with the oncoming sun. He thinks about how pathetic he must look to Hel, the great Mother of Night Furies and Death itself. He can’t imagine how disappointed she must be, looking down on one of her greatest creations mourning over a situation that was their own doing.

Toothless’ right ear plate twitches.

Perhaps running off to go play Scout as soon as evening began making its appearance was a bad idea, but he didn't really have a choice in the matter when the world was too much and too little and nothing was everything and everything was nothing. And besides all the aches and pains that comes with running yourself ragged traversing a variety of terrain for hours on end—he can think clearly now.

Toothless' right ear plate twitches.

Well, everything is decently more coherent than it was before the sun set.

Semantics.

"Hey!"

Snatched out of his own mind, Toothless turns his head towards his own tail and hisses, "You talk. About _nothing_ of importance."

Annoyance taps at the black tail pinning them, "Nothing of importance to _you,_ Nightshade. I’ll have ya know I’m very interestin’ to other dragons. And what can I say other than I've got a lot of stuff to say?"

" _Nothing_."

Time passes in tensed silence. It weighs heavy on all four of Toothless’ shoulders.

“My...my mmm...” Toothless closes his eyes. Swallows down his need to cry out. “My precious thing...is being _stolen_ from me.” The words leave his maw and he immediately wishes to take them back. Saying them out loud make them real, make them tangible, and he wants anything but that, anything other than for this nightmare of a situation to be irrefutable.

The little dragon aborts its movement to bite at Toothless’ tail, startled by the statement. “Your…your _what?_ ” They ask, hesitant, squirming underneath the pressure from the bigger dragon’s weight on them and the pressure to say at least _something_ , “I mean, um. Uh. Sorry? For your…los—”

“ _ **By some dragoness he only met a moon ago!**_ ” Toothless _roars_ , leaping to his paws in a blink of an eye and blowing a giant pine tree apart in an explosion of magenta with a quickly discharged plasma blast, uprooting the tree from where it was rooted into the ground, no farther than four Nightmares away. The top half of it goes down with a loud, awful, creaky sound, and Toothless turns to snarl at the Terror that has been his unwelcome companion. The little thing’s legs quiver, with its snow colored eyes opened wide.

Silence rules the forest.

Then, barely restrained chittering.

“Oh really? Wow!” The little Terror mocks, chittering gleefully to itself, slowly backing away from the bigger dragon now that it’s no longer pinned. “And by the sound of it, you can’t even force her to leave them alone! Well I’ll be, a dragon that the _mighty_ Nightshade Queen can’t control? Can’t whittle into nothi—”

Toothless closes in on the Terror in two short strides, ear plates twitching and a growl on the tip of his tongue. The _audacity_ of this little prey snatcher.“She’s not of my Nest, and I don't force my Will upon _any_ dragon.”

“Dragoness? That’s not of your Nest?” Annoyance scratches themselves using their left hind leg, big icy eyes squinted in thought. “Oh!” they shout, “oh, you’re talking about _False-Honey_. Yeah, you should probably do somethin’ about her.”

Toothless blinks. The admission makes the raging wildfire that is his anger sputter.

“What?”

The little Terror huffs. “Look, every time I’m around her she looks at me like she wants to eat me whole! Let alone the looks I’ve seen her giving other dragons! I didn’t think Snakewings even _ate_ other dragons!”

Toothless’ right ear plate twitches. “I don’t think we’re talking about the same—”

Annoyance begins to jump up and down, squealing their head off. “Who. Else. Would. I. Be. Talkin’ about!” they screech, “She’s the only Snakewing on this island spilling the blood of other dragons! And cozying up to your precious meat sacks! They’ve even started calling her ‘Honeyblood’, whatever that means.”

All Toothless can do is blink.

They’ve given **Her** a _name_.

Something should be done, something needs to be done, something _**will**_ be done—

“How about... _you_.”

Annoyance shuffles backward a few ways, the grass audibly squelching beneath their paws. “Erm, me... _what_ , exactly?” they mumble.

Toothless hisses, immediately advancing on them. The pupils of his eyes mere slits as he looks directly into Annoyance’s. “ _You_ , help _me_.”

“Uh, again, with _what_ , exactly?”

Toothless prowls, pacing a circle around Annoyance before they can be aware of it. Trapping them. “Help me get rid of _Her._ Help me get rid of _Unworthy_. Make her see that there's nothing for her here, that there's nothing to be gained, and then she'll leave.”

A small, fleeting pressure on his tail; Annoyance has tripped themselves on his tail from scrambling backward. “Oh no ya don’t, ‘your _Majesty’_. You might be Queen of this Nest but ya ain’t my Queen!” they shout. “I ain’t doin’ nothin’ for you!”

Long moments pass.

The birds sing their early morning song.

Toothless’ right ear plate twitches.

The Terror won’t help him? The Terror won’t help him? The Terror won't help him. The Terror isn't going to help him. It's fine. That's fine. Of _course_ it is. He's a Nightshade, he's a Queen, why would he ever ask for help from such a nuisance? A dragon that isn’t even a part of his Nest? What use would a Terrible Terror be of to him, anyway? He’d be better off asking Barf and Bel—no, no, It’s fine. It’s fine, it’s all fine, he can do this. He can do this alone, alone, alone, all alone—

He straightens himself, removing his tail from underneath the smaller dragon's body, letting the small yellow mass hit the forest floor. “Very well. Enjoy your suns, Annoyance.”

Toothless turns and leaves the smaller creature on the ground, taking off towards the Viking settlement at a speedy trot by following the rising sun. The yellow Terror screeches at his retreating back.

“Hey! My name’s not Annoyance—! Wait, what do you mean, 'enjoy my suns'? Hey, come back here!”

Toothless ignores them and their continued calls for him to come back or slow down, remaining fixated on his route back to his wooden cave nest, trotting up hills and leaping over fallen trees. He has more important things to focus on than a mouthy, idiot Terrible Terror who’s going to be eaten in a day or two, like Hiccup drifting away from him right before his eyes.

His right ear plate twitches, and he breaks out into a sprint.

No, no. That can’t happen. It can’t. It’s impossible. Toothless _knows_ this. He and his boy have only spent a fragment of the Nightshade’s entire lifespan together, but they’ve been through _so much_. They’ve fought and surrendered, lived and survived, crashed and flew, loved and lost. Half of his tail fin is gone because of his beloved and one of his beloved’s hind paws is gone because of him, yet they’ve both risen above that together, as One. Completing each other in a way Toothless had never thought was possible.

Could all that really matter less when compared to _Her?_

To _**Unworthy?**_

He runs faster.

* * *

The world behind his eyelids is dark and expansive, but infinitely warm compared to the cold harshness of an entire night spent in the wilds. It smells of fire, of all too delicate, flammable parchment, of countless ideas and the wonders of creation. Smells more than preferable than those of other dragons and prey items.

He's at peace.

Toothless lies on his beloved's bed-nest, the soft blanket that covers it rubbing against his underbelly pleasantly. His tail hangs over the edge of the bed, swishing with the laziness of a particularly content domestic cat, red prosthetic tail fin tucked away safely.

"Aha! It's finished!"

Toothless blinks open his eyes, although very reluctantly. He raises his head and takes in his precious thing, standing ramrod straight on his hind legs and holding a piece of parchment as if it was the Gods’ personal gift to him. A new invention, then?

The Night Fury croons at the human, and Hiccup startles before turning to face the dragon, paper held just so so that Toothless can get a good eyeful. From what he can see, it's just two sets of dragon teeth. But going by everything else painstakingly drawn on the piece of parchment it's more complicated than that. So two sets of dragon teeth, and liquid somehow ties into it. Hm.

Hiccup leaves to go place the piece of parchment on his desk before returning to his place standing in front of his dragon. Toothless lets out a loud, lazy yawn as gentle, skillful claws come to work absolute wonders on the sensitive spot under his jaw.

“Morning, you.”

Toothless gives a low rumbling purr, his eyes still shut in pleasure. His Darling Boy. His Dearly Beloved. His One and Only. His Precious Thing.

Hiccup moves from his position in front of his dragon to sit on his bed with him, although on the edge of it with how much space Toothless takes up on it. "This is gonna make her life so much better." Hiccup proclaims, reaching up to caress Toothless’ head, his touch feather light.

Toothless rolls over onto his back, and the bed-nest creaks with his motion. Hiccup’s creation is an invention with a purpose to better a dragon's life? His purr once again fills up their wooden cave nest. Oh, how kind his rider is. But that has always been his beloved, hasn't it? From the very beginning, he's always been good. Even when his beloved shot him out of the great skies, he still held true to that goodness, and, in turn, Toothless held true to his honor.

Toothless puts his head against Hiccup's chest, eyes closed. _Oh, the things I would do for you._ Toothless lifts his head to nuzzle the side of Hiccup’s face, and rumbles happily when his beloved leans into him, still scratching that wondrous spot.

 _I love you, I love you, I love you, oh how I love you._ He purrs drunkenly.

He feels Hiccup lean even more into the scales on the side of his head. "I love you too." He whispers.

Toothless gives a full body shiver at those four simple quiet words, and the tiny claws working their own special brand of magic immediately stop. Toothless whimpers, his entire body quivering with emotion. _Say that again,_ he thinks desperately, putting his head into Hiccup’s chest once again _._ He can feel his darling boy put pressure on the sides of his head, obviously thinking the whimper was a whimper of pain and wanting him to remove his head from his chest to see what's wrong, but Toothless doesn't budge an inch, pushing his head into Hiccup's chest even further. _Say that again,_ he thinks once again.

But Hiccup says nothing and his tiny claws never return to their position on the scales of his jaw. It pulls an unhappy moan out of the dragon and Toothless reluctantly opens his eyes to meet his rider's.

Those green eyes are so similar to his own, but in this moment they look pained, tortured by something Toothless doesn't know of. Toothless gives a gentle croon, eyes big as they can go, trying to get his beloved to tell him what's wrong.

He watches Hiccup open and close his mouth repeatedly a few times before he comes out with a sentence, "How ya feeling, Bud?"

Toothless blinks slowly then straightens up.

How is he feeling? How is he _feeling?_ Why, he's high up in the clouds. So high, he can see nothing beneath him but blessed white. And it's all because his rider, his precious thing, his beloved is right here with him. How could he feel anything else but pure elation? He's so—he could just—

His maw opens up, and Toothless begins to sing.

Hiccup, his precious thing, bursts out into hysterical laughter, because he can't _really_ sing, being a dragon and all that. But if he puts his all into it, he can get marginally close to the real deal. And that's what's important, isn't it? Getting his precious love to smile like that, again and again for the rest of his life?

He jumps off of his beloved's bed-nest and begins to prance around their small living space, occasionally leaping onto a support beam 'singing' all the while. Exceptional hearing picks up Hiccup's delighted laughter between the coughs and wheezing and Toothless’ own mangled attempts at imitating human melody, and it makes his heartfire glow.

"If I didn't know any better—" Hiccup coughs, "I'd say you got into a patch of dragonnip!"

Toothless gracefully leaves his place from on top of a support beam and trots his way in front him, shoving his face into his rider's chest, making sounds between pleased, guttural rumbling and elated, delicate purring.

_No dragonnip, this is all me. All for you. All from you._

Gentle, oh so gentle hands put upwards pressure on his jaw and Toothless follows it, raising his head to meet his beloved's eyes.

Hiccup slowly closes his eyes and presses his forehead to Toothless’, and Toothless mimics him. His purring getting so loud he can easily hear it over his darling boy's heartbeat. Over anything and everything else. In this moment, nothing else matters. Nothing else _will_ matter.

And yet, Hiccup pulls away from him, ending the lovely, _divine_ moment.

"Welp, I better get this planto Gobber," he says, walking over to his desk a grabbing multiple pieces of parchment, "The sooner we can figure this out, the better."

Toothless lets a grumble escape from him without meaning to. Why would they ever need to face the outside world when they could just stay here, curled around each other with their heartfires singing in harmony?

Nevertheless, he's right behind his precious thing when he makes his way to the stairs—

Hiccup whips around to face him and his arms fling out in front of him, his hands up in a simple motion Toothless knows as a command to stop, so he stops. “No no, bud.” He says softly, carefully, “I think you should stay here.”

Toothless blinks. What? That makes no sense. Where Hiccup goes, he always follows. Why— _wait_.

He sees, now.

His beloved's worried look…it's the same, grievously worried look that he’s been sporting for this _entire moon_. The invention...the invention that supposed to make a _dragon's life better—_

_He’s thinking about **Her** , isn’t he?_

Toothless’ right ear plate—

A truly _vicious_ hiss escapes from his maw without him meaning to, and Hiccup jumps out of his skin, backing away two steps. Toothless’ hiss quickly cuts off in shame. How could he? How could he _hiss_ at his Beloved?

He’s better than this.

An uncomfortable silence falls upon them, and Toothless is at a loss for what to do. Hiccup, lovely, gorgeous being that he is the one to break it. “Get some rest. For me? Please?” He asks.

No. No! He can punish himself for hissing at his One and Only, but he can’t allow _this_. If his darling boy walks out that door...he may not come back to him.

That. Cannot. Happen.

Moments pass.

He whimpers, it’s his last protest. His last shot.

“Toothless, _please_.”

Toothless bows his head. He is weak, so weak. He knows this as he turns away from the other half of his soul to go and lower his body on to the cold slab of rock that serves as his resting place.

Hiccup smiles at him, but it seems wrong somehow. So deeply wrong, but Toothless can’t tell how it’s wrong. “Don't worry your pretty little head, bud. I'll be back before you know it.”

Toothless whines, mindlessly dropping his head to meet the freezing slab of rock in defeat. He knows he should heat it, feed his stuttering heartfire in a way, but he can't bring himself to go through the motions.

Instead, he simply listens as Hiccup leaves through the wooden entrance of their nest to go jump into _Unworthy's_ waiting wings.

Toothless thinks he may die, he feels so cold now.

Now he has to come face to face with a question he'd thought he'd never have to think over: what ever would he do without the wind-beneath-his-wings? The other-half-of-him? His greatest love?

He doesn't know.

He doesn't want to find out.

Toothless' right ear plate twitches.

He doesn't have to find out.

He _won't_ find out, because Hiccup won't leave—

Something of a mass similar to a rock impacts him on his head before it hits the wooden floorboards with one of the dullest _thuds_ he’s ever had the pleasure of hearing. He opens his eyes to find Annoyance gathering themselves up on their legs, snowy eyes squinted up at him as if deep in thought. "Finally found ya, did you think I wouldn't? You know what, nevermind that, this is more important; I've come to bargain."

Oh?

Oh.

Toothless’ right ear plate—

 _ **T w i t c h e s**_.

Yes.

Yes, he won't find out, because Hiccup won't leave him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading the very first chapter of "Make a Move"! It's been a pleasure writing this and I hope it was a pleasure for you to read, I have a lot planned for this fic of mine, so I hope you decide to stick with me until the end.
> 
> A decent chunk of this would not have been possible without my Beta, Thursday26. They have been so much of a help there's no way I can properly thank them! So here's to an unhinged Toothless and a very worried Hiccup Horrendous Haddock!
> 
> (Psst, hey! I also have a Toothcup/Multishipper Discord server right here if you're interested:  
> https://discord.gg/qmcEh3b  
> Come hang out with fellow shippers if you want!)


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